There comes a time when we hear a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
Oh, and it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can't go on pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We're all a part of God's great big family
And the truth you know love is all we need

(CHORUS)

We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
so let's start giving

There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

Well, send them your heart
So they know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us
By turning stones to bread
And so we all must lend a helping hand

( REPEAT CHORUS )

When you're down and out
There seems no hope at all
But if you just believe
There's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, let's realize
That one change can only come
When we stand together as one

( REPEAT CHORUS )

.

Note from Dee Finney: 2-05-2001

When I dream, I often wonder why I dream the way I do, since I seem to
dream differently than other people I know well such as family and friends.

(Not to say that other people who write to us don't dream incredible topics,
or have fantastic nighttime experiences. Lots of people have wonderful,
spiritual, and sometimes prophetic dreams. )

My quest for many years, as well as Joe Mason, has always been to try
to teach people, who aren't paying attention, how important their dreams
are to their future, not to mention that people are dreaming the future
enmasse.

The question for everyone is always: where is the lesson in this for me?
Why did I dream this?Was this really a 'dream'? Or was
it something else?

I always keep my mind open for other explanations for the dream world
than the little mental box I was given to think in as a child.

The dream I had was about world travel and to see it from a higher perspective
than did Magellan, or even myself or my relatives did in the past.

There are many ways to see the world from our modern perspective,
as in the music I have presented above, compared to the world that Magellan
saw in 1519 or Columbus in 1492 for that matter. In the early years
of trading, there was the Silk Road across Asia to China and at the time
of Jesus, in 5 BC. , Joseph of Arimathea was already trading in tin
with England and sailing the Atlantic. The Vikings were crossing the Atlantic
starting around 900 A.D.to the Americas ... way before Columbus
... remember Americus Vespucci?

How Did America Get It's Name?

It is generally assumed and taught that America is named after the explorer
Americus Vespucci (1451-1512). Others claim that America is named after Richard
Ameryke, enthusiastic supporter and financier of the explorer John Cabot
(1450-1498).

The name America, however, is much older, and has been attached to this
great land since the time of the Vikings or before and hundreds of years
prior to the time of Columbus, Cabot or Vespucci.

It has been suggested that "America" is derived from the old Norse word
"Ommerike" (oh-meh-ric-eh), which was in common use among the North Atlantic
sailing fraternity from the beginning of the 11th century. (Did The Vikings
Name America, by Dick Wicken, (1980, p. 1)

Omme means "out there," "final," or "ultimate." Rike (spelled a number
of ways in ancient Norse manuscripts such as rige, rega, rike, rikja, and
reykja) means "great land," "kingdom," and "empire." It is the equivalent
of the Gaeli "righ" and the German "reich." The Old Norse ommerike, is a
slightly corrupted form of the still more ancient Visigothic term amalric.
(Phonetically, the "I" is interchangeable with "r" as with many languages,
thus giving us "amorric,"

~~~~~~~~~

More Explorers

Chinese sailors made it all the way to Africa in 1424. Cortez crossed
the Atlantic in 1513 and conquered the Aztecs and wiped them out. The Aztecs
were expecting the return of Quetzalcoatl from across the seas who was a
white man. Where was he from?

If you think way back to the time of Atlantis of MU, there was travel
across the oceans in boats made of reeds according to
Thor Heyerdahl.
The placement of
Atlantis in the Atlantic
Ocean has long been debated.Then too, there is the mythological
tale of Jason and the
Argonauts.

The Phoenicians sailed the oceans in long ago ancient days as well, as
far back as 600 BC. The Romans ruled Egypt for a long time and it's very
difficult to get there overland. Alexandria was a famous sea port in ancient
days.

Marco Polo
(1254-1324), is probably the most famous Westerner who traveled on the Silk
Road. He traveled for 24 years across Asia, returning by ship through the
China Sea and to Sumatra and the Indian Ocean, and finally docked at Hormuz.
When he died, his epitaph said: "I have only told the half of what I saw!"
On his voyage home, over 600 passengers and crew died and no records were
kept as to the reason.

All of the world travelers were not just seeking new lands for the joy
of seeing new places. For example, in 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued a papal
bull allowing the enslavement of "pagans and infidels" justifying all European
slaving expeditions to Africa. In order to spread Christ's message to "heathen"
masses while protecting the Church's sovereignty over the new territories,
the Church sent missionaries to accompany many of the voyages of overseas
expansion. The Church eventually granted kingdoms like Portugal and Spain
political sovereignty over these territories, clearly establishing the Church's
ultimate authority in European society. Portugal and Spain conquered much
of South America.

Over the many years of ocean exploration, many ships were lost at sea,
and sailors now expend great amounts of money and even their lives looking
for the lost treasures.

2-5-01 - This dream began with a computer screen of some topics which
had been introduced in an earlier dream I think. I had to rearrange them
in some reasonable order. Included in these were links to other pages
I had already done.

The dream then switched to a people dream in which I was cooking in a
small kitchen, and was making dinner for the family.

Somewhere during the process, Edward - my ex-husband showed up and he
told us of his world travels. While he told about his world travels, there
was another woman whom I don't know between him and I. He
told about places I knew he had never been to ... at least in this lifetime.

( He never ventured beyond the West Coast before he met me)

Neither the other woman or I was given the time to tell about our own
world travels, as small as mine are.

(As an aside to the dream, this will help explain it a little. I traveled
outside the State of Wisconsin only 3 times before I met Edward. Twice,
this distance was only about 20 miles outside the state line just so I could
say I had been out of the state. I was raised by an extremely protective
family and my first marriage was the same. I was protected by means of 'fear'
stories by both my father and my first husband. Just to give the reader
perspective on the way I was raised, I wasn't even allowed to drive a car
until I was 35. I was never allowed to travel alone with friends when I was
younger for fear there might be a car or bus accident. Now that I was an
adult, I was terrified when I left Wisconsin that people
on the West Coast were different than Wisconsin people.
I watched lots of TV so that I would see people from
the West Coast to see how they were before I made my final decision to go
there. It was for spiritual reasons that I went since I had to leave my grown
children and young grandchildren behind and they were all against my leaving
to join my husband who had no choice about going. However, once I got
there, I found that lots of people were from Wisconsin. My doctor came
from a neighborhood only 5 blocks from where I lived in Wisconsin. My
worries were for naught. Once I got out of the fear beliefs, I found
that people everywhere were wonderful, caring, and loving. As it was, during
our marriage we lived in 5 different states, all west of Lake Michigan. After
I left my husband, I went home back to Wisconsin and he continued
traveling from state to state, and lived in 4 more states in the next few
years. I have since moved to California to be with my wonderful Joe.
We met on the internet and fell in love very quickly and decided we should
get together and do this website about dreams.)

In the dream, all I could do was sit on the side quietly and hope that
this unexpected visit went well. I was expecting trouble with him as his
visits were always extremely stressful.

At that point, Edward left the house without saying a word and a very
tall man about 7 feet tall was trying to show me something on a very high
shelf which was even higher, but I don't recall what that was. (Symbolically,
I'm certain he was trying to make me look at a higher perspective
of what was going on.)

I looked at the clock and saw that it was 7 p.m. and then remembered
I had to feed the people who were left in the house and as I asked the children
whether they wanted Chinese or American food, which I saw was stacked in
kettles on top of each other on the stove. The kettle of Chinese food was
actually on top of the American stew.

I started to wake up as I was pondering this.

While I was waking up, a computer screen or sheet of paper appeared in
a vision. It said, "With your permission, we'd like to begin a discussion
of the world travels of Magellan."

On this screen, an outline of a study of Magellan and all the places
he traveled in the world appeared as one would make an outline of a book
or long story.

The outline faded quickly but I understood that I needed to know about
this world traveler and what was the higher perspective
of world traveling. I have no clue as to the 'we' who presented
the outline to me.

Thinking back to how I was raised, I marvel at the tremendous courage
it must have taken to travel around the world when the journey and the outcome
was completely unknown.

In 1929, scholars working in the archives of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey's
Topkapi Palace Museum made an exciting discovery: a section of an early
16th-century Ottoman map based in part, apparently, on the original chart
drawn or used by Christopher Columbus and showing his historic discoveries
in the New World. The map, signed by an Ottoman captain named Piri Reis,
was dated 1513, just 21 years after Columbus discovered America.

This find -- disclosed two years later in Holland by German Orientalist
Paul Kahle -- astonished the 18th Congress of Orientalists. For if a notation
on the map were true -- "The coasts and islands on this map are taken from
Columbus's map" -- the Turkish map might finally settle a centuries-old
debate: did Columbus know he had found a new world? Or did he die thinking
he had found a new route to China?

As it turned out, the map did not settle the question. To the contrary,
it has raised new and far more perplexing questions, and, in recent years,
has sparked a rash of quasi-scientific and popular theories and hypotheses
that attempt to answer those questions. Some of those theories, to be sure,
verge on the ludicrous. But others, even when startling, have raised fascinating
and sometimes disturbing possibilities.

Those developments, however, came later. In 1931, historians of cartography
had quite enough to do trying to cope with the immediate questions posed
by the discovery in Istanbul. Was the Piri Reis map authentic? If so, how
did it get into the hands of Christian Spain's feared Muslim rivals? And
just who, incidentally, was this Piri Reis?

According to subsequent research, the story of the Piri Reis map began
in 1501, just nine years after Columbus discovered the New World, when Kemal
Reis, a captain in the Ottoman fleet, captured seven ships off the coast
of Spain, interrogated the crews and discovered that one man had sailed with
Columbus on his great voyages of discovery. More important, in an age when
maps were secret and maritime information invaluable, the sailor had in his
possession a map of the New World drawn by Columbus himself. Kemal Reis seized
the map, kept it and subsequently willed it to his nephew Piri Reis, also
an Ottoman naval captain, and a cartographer.

In 1511, the story goes on, Piri Reis began to draw a new map of the world
which was to incorporate all of the recent Spanish and Portuguese discoveries.
To do so, he used about 20 source maps. Among them, he wrote, were eight
maps of the world done in the time of Alexander the Great (the fourth century
B.C.), an Arab map of India, four Portuguese maps of the Indian Ocean and
China, and his uncle Kemal's bequest, "a map drawn by Columbus in the western
region." He did not, however, say what the other six source maps were.

In Gallipoli, where he temporarily retired, Piri Reis reduced his source
maps to a single scale -- a difficult task in those days -- and spent three
years producing his map. When it was finished he added this inscription:
"The author of this is the humble Piri Hajji Muhammad, known as the nephew
of Kemal Reis, in the town of Gallipoli in the Holy Month of Muharram of
the year 919 [A.D. 1513]."

This map, presented to Sultan Selim, seems to have helped the career
of Piri Reis. He was made an admiral. But it was not Piri Reis' only contribution
to cartography. In 1521 he also wrote a mariner's guide to the coasts and
islands of the Mediterranean -- which was to interest the cartographers trying
to authenticate the map found in Istanbul. Called "Kitab-i Bahriye" ("Book
of the Mariner," or "The Naval Handbook"), this book contained an account
of the discovery of America by Columbus that was virtually identical to a
long inscription on the left hand side of the map found in the archives of
Istanbul.

The map found in Istanbul, therefore, is authentic. Although research
has never disclosed what the six unlisted sources were, or further identified
the eight "done in the time of Alexander the Great," there is no doubt that
one source was a map drawn or used by Christopher Columbus himself.

There is little doubt, either, that both Piri Reis' map and book were
valuable to the Ottoman Empire. Focusing, as they both did, on discoveries
by Spanish and Portuguese mariners, they probably alerted the sultan to the
growing threat to Ottoman power posed by European exploration of the Indian
Ocean and the Arabian Gulf.

Ironically, Piri Reis' book -- in which he urged Suleiman the Magnificent
to drive the Portuguese out of the Red Sea and the Gulf -- also led to his
death. Put in command of a fleet to drive the Portuguese out of the Gulf
in 1551, he lost most of his ships and, although in his 80's, was executed.
By 1929 both Piri Reis and his map had been virtually forgotten. Even
then the enthusiasm aroused by the map was short. Once the initial excitement
over the discovery had faded, relatively few historians of cartography, with
the exception of Kahle, paid much attention to the map or tried seriously
to determine exactly what it proved -- even with regard to Columbus. "Imago
Mundi," for example, one of the more important journals devoted to the history
of cartography, has never run a full-length article on the Piri Reis map.

In 1954, however, a Harvard-trained teacher of the history of science
named Charles Hapgood assigned his class at Keene State College in New Hampshire
to the task of examining the Piri Reis map more closely. Starting with little
knowledge of the subject -- and, says Professor Hapgood emphatically, "no
preconceived notions" -- he and his students eventually spent seven years
on the project. During that time, Hapgood says, "we discarded hundreds of
hypotheses" before arriving at those advanced in a book called "Maps of the
Ancient Sea Kings."

Two years later those hypotheses became unexpectedly famous when they
were incorporated in the controversial best-seller "Chariots of the Gods."
Written by Erich von Daniken, "Chariots" went into at least 18 English editions
and was translated into numerous other languages. Presented as fact, and
written in a pseudo-scientific tone, "Chariots" described and briefly examined
what the author called "the unsolved mysteries of the past."

Among the "unsolved mysteries," von Daniken said, was the appearance
on the Piri Reis map of information that 16th-century cartographers could
not possibly have known. Citing Hapgood, von Daniken said that the map showed
the coast of Antarctica, not discovered for centuries afterward, and certain
mountains in Antarctica that were not discovered until modern sonar made
it possible to locate them beneath the ice cap.

For the author -- if not for his legions of critics -- it was obvious
how Piri Reis got such information: astronauts from another planet had provided
it on maps. The astronauts, he claimed, had made numerous appearances on
earth before and during the period of recorded history, and left traces all
over the world.

Despite inaccuracies in describing what in some cases are mysteries --
and in citing Hapgood -- and despite frequently debatable logic, "Chariots"
sold millions of copies. It also persuaded thousands of readers -- brought
up during a period of intense public interest in "flying saucers" and "UFO's"
-- that its premises were valid. "Chariots," indeed, attracted such attention
that BBC Television filmed and showed a two-part refutation of the book.

The BBC, moreover, was not alone; most serious observers scorned the book.
Yet one of the points raised by Hapgood and quoted by von Daniken went
stubbornly unanswered: how did Piri Reis know about Antarctica and its mountains
in the 16th century, if, in fact, his map did show them?

One answer, in science-fiction form, was put forth by author Allan W.
Eckert in a ponderous 1977 novel called "The Hab Theory" in which the Ottoman
admiral's map was a focal point of the plot and in which other, apparently
true, phenomena were described in great detail. Among them was the
undeniable fact that mammoths - - extinct for 18,000 years -- were found
in Siberia embedded in the permafrost, the frozen subsoil of Arctic and Antarctic
regions.

According to Eckert, the mammoths were "quick-frozen" rather the way orange
juice is today, thus explaining why the meat was still edible. Furthermore,
some mammoths were found in an upright position with undigested grasses in
their stomachs-- facts confirmed last July by a spokesman at the British
Museum. The grasses, moreover, were tropical grasses. To Eckert, this suggested
that Siberia was once a tropical region and that the shift in climate from
tropic to arctic was very swift: in a matter of hours.

This occurred, "The Hab Theory" goes on, because every 6,000 years or
so the polar regions accumulate so much ice that the earth begins to wobble
on its axis. At a critical point the wobble becomes so bad that the earth
capsizes, leaving the polar regions at the equator and the equatorial regions
at the poles.

The earth's normal rotation them resumes until the new polar regions
accumulate enough ice to cause another wobble and another cataclysm.

This process, the book continues, explains what characters in the book
call scientific mysteries. One is that the ancient Berbers, in what is now
the Sahara, left cave paintings showing people swimming and sailing in "a
vast body of water." This, according to "The Hab Theory," was a sea created
when the earth capsized and the polar ice cap, now close to the equator,
melted, creating a large sea -- now reduced to today's Lake Chad.

Even for science fiction, it is a startling idea. Yet it is not entirely
without a basis in fact. In the "New Scientist" issue of May 17, 1979, two
professors from Cardiff and Oxford Universities in Britain were quoted as
saying that the last ice age may have come quite swiftly and cited the mammoths
in Siberia as proof. "Their excellent state of preservation is also evidence
that they were quickly frozen after death," the article said.

Science fiction, of course, is as much fiction as science. Still,
at the heart of "The Hab Theory" there were some ascertainable facts. The
Piri Reis map does exist, there were mammoths preserved in Siberian permafrost,
and cave painting so some sort have been found in the Sahara, though whether
they show "vast seas" or not could not be determined. Even more to the point,
there is a real Hab theory. In fact, according to Professor Hapgood, the
real Hab theory--as distinct from Eckert's science-fiction treatment -- was
what launched him on his first studies of Antarctic "mysteries" and led,
in a curious chain of events, to the Piri Reis map.

The real Hab theory was first proposed by an engineer specializing in
centrifugal force: the late Hugh Auchincloss Brown, whose initials are the
same as the fictional proponent of Eckert's book. In a book called "Cataclysms
of the Earth," Brown suggested what is basically the same theory presented
in the novel: that massive accumulation of ice at the poles, especially the
South Pole, caused the earth to wobble on its axis and then, about every
7,000 years, to "careen." Like the novel, it has some basis in fact. A spokesman
at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, England--who says "careening"
is impossible -- confirmed last month that the ice does accumulate
at the South Pole in massive quantities: 2,000 billion tons a year, enough
to build a wall 10 inches thick and half a mile high from New York to
California.

For Charles Hapgood in New Hampshire, Brown's theory was fascinating.
"I spent about 10 years looking into it," he said in a recent interview,
"until mathematical calculations proved it impossible." But as his research
had raised certain questions in his own mind, Hapgood continued to work on
the subject and eventually came up with his own theory, which he outlined
in "Earth's Shifting Crust" (Pantheon Books, New York, 1958).

Essentially, he said, the earth's crust "slips" over its core, thus
periodically changing the positions of the poles. Aware that ideas that deviate
from traditional scientific beliefs get short shrift in the scientific community
-- as did, for instance, Wegener's theory of continental drift, now widely
accepted -- Hapgood took the precaution of submitting his manuscript to a
scientist whose views were generally thought to be acceptable: Albert Einstein.
Though neither cartographer nor geographer, Einstein read the manuscript,
agreed to write the introduction and said Hapgood's ideas "electrified"
him. He also said that if Hapgood's theory "continued to prove itself", it
would be "of great importance to everything that is related to the history
of the earth's surface."

Meanwhile, Hapgood had heard of the Piri Reis map. A U.S. Navy cartographer,
engineer and ancient-map specialist--Captain Arlington H. Mallery -- had
come across a copy of the map, studied it and said publicly that the map
seemed to show Antarctica -- unknown at the time the map was drawn -- and
that, furthermore, the coast seemed to have been mapped at a time when it
was free of ice, an apparent impossibility. Furthermore, Mallery's opinions
had been endorsed by the directors of the astronomical observatories at Boston
College and Georgetown University, Daniel Linehan and Francis Heyden.

To Hapgood, already caught up in the subject of Antarctica, the questions
raised by Mallery and the Piri Reis map were an irresistible challenge. As
Antarctica was not discovered until 1820 -- 307 years after Piri Reis drew
his map -- how could Piri Reis possibly have included Antarctica -- if he
did? And, since Antarctica had, presumably, been covered with ice for millennia,
why would he have shown it without ice? And why does the notation on the
map read as follows: "There is no trace of cultivation in this country.
Everything is desolate, and big snakes are said to be there. For this
reason the Portuguese did not land on these shores, which are said to be
very hot"?

Hapgood thought that investigation of these ideas would be an interesting
challenge for his students. Accordingly, he presented it to them as a class
project and began to work with them himself.

As the investigation began, Hapgood and his students immediately came
across several puzzling facts. One was that, on the Piri Reis map, the mountains
in the western region of what is obviously South America seemed to be the
Andes. But since Magellan did not find a way around the continent, through
the strait named after him, until 1520 -- seven years after the map was finished
-- and since Pizarro did not sight the Andes until 1527 -- 14 years
afterwards--how could Piri Reis have known about the Andes? The answer,
obviously, was that one of Piri Reis' 20-odd source maps must have shown
them.

But which map? Hapgood concluded it was probably one of the eight maps
of the world done in the time of Alexander the Great, or one of the six other
"unknown" maps--which meant someone had not only known of the Americas, but
had mapped them at least 1,700 years before Columbus.

It was possible, of course, that the mountains were not -- and were not
supposed to be -- the Andes at all. Still, the map did show them roughly
in the right place, and included a drawing of a creature that Kahle had
tentatively identified as a llama. As the llama is exclusive to the Andes
and was not known in Europe in 1513, when Piri Reis finished his map, Hapgood
concluded that the mountains were indeed the Andes.

As the study went on, the Hapgood team noticed, toward the south, what
looked very much like the Falkland Islands -- even though the Falklands were
not discovered until 1592 -- and reasoned that if they were the Falklands,
the land south of them would almost surely be the coast of Queen Maud Land
-- Antarctica -- not discovered until more than three centuries after the
Piri Reis map.

As it was this feature that had fascinated Hapgood originally, his team
made a particularly careful comparison of "Antarctica" on the Piri Reis map
with Antarctica on a modern globe. They concluded that there was "a striking
similarity" between the Piri Reis coastline and the Queen Maud Land coast.
Later, after a series of complicated calculations, they also came to believe
that the Piri Reis map, in that area, was accurate to within 20 miles.

In what was a vital aspect of the developing hypotheses, they also concluded
that Mallery's "mountains"--the mountains not discovered until this century
-- were, on the Piri Reis map, the small cluster of islands shown at the
bottom toward the right. According to Hapgood, the "heavy shading of some
of the islands" was, in 16th-century map-making techniques, an indication
of mountainous terrain. In addition, he said, a seismic profile made by a
Norwegian-British-Swedish expedition in 1949 disclosed a range of undersea
mountains. Some of these, the Hapgood team concluded, would emerge from the
sea as islands if there were no ice cap--another indication that Antarctica
had really been explored and mapped earlier, at a time when no ice cap
existed.

By then, of course, Hapgood and his students were captivated by the mystery
of the map. They proceeded cautiously, however, because they knew that many
cartographers in ancient times vaguely believed in the existence of a landmass
in the southern regions and, with or without evidence, might have added something
to their charts out of blind faith -- or even out of a preference for esthetic
balance.

In 1959, however, in the Library of Congress, Hapgood noticed a presumably
authentic map that instantly wiped out his doubts: a map of what was almost
certainly Antarctica, done in 1531 by the French cartographer Oronce Fine,
also known as Oronteus Finaeus. To even the most skeptical, the
Oronteus Finaeus
map is startling. Although it was printed in a book in 1531 -- and was
thus not subject to subsequent amendment--it is remarkably similar to today's
maps of Antarctica. Admittedly it is too close to the tip of South America,
and it is incorrectly oriented, yet the proportions seem similar, the coastal
mountains, found in the 1957 geophysical study, are in roughly the right
places and so are many bays and rivers. Furthermore, the shape of South America
itself seems right, and the close resemblance between a modern, scientifically
exact map of the Ross Sea and Finaeus' unnamed gulf is striking.

What is different, however, is that the Oronteus Finaeus map does not
seem to show the great shelves of ice that, today, surround the continent,
nor the great glaciers that fringe the coastal regions. Instead there seem
to be estuaries and inlets, suggesting great rivers. To Hapgood and his team,
that meant that at some time in the past the Ross Sea and its coasts -- scene
of the November, 1979 air disaster on Mount Erebus--and some of the hinterland
of Antarctica were free of ice. It also suggested to Hapgood that since the
Antarctic was certainly ice-bound in 1531 -- when Oronteus Finaeus made his
map -- Finaeus must have had access to very ancient maps indeed: maps made
when Antarctica was largely free of the mile=thick ice cap that buries it
today, and presumably has covered it for millennia.

Those observations, however, were just the beginning. "We had to have
more than a resemblance," Professor Hapgood said recently. The evidence --
"the only evidence"--is in the mathematical calculations by which Hapgood
and his team -- with the help of an M.I.T. mathematician -- converted the
"rhumb"
lines on the map into modern lines of latitude and longitude. This, briefly,
involved the assumption that a system of lines of longitude and latitude
underlies the network of rhumb lines which radiate from the five
wind roses located
in the Atlantic. These wind roses lie on the perimeter of a circle whose
center would be near Cairo on the missing portion of the map. Hapgood postulated
from this that the map was drawn on what is called an "equidistant projection"
centered on Cairo. (The base
line is located at the Giza Pyramid)

This conversion required years of trial and error and eventually involved
a cartographic unit of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). But the results,
Hapgood says, were startling. They seemed to show an accuracy impossible
at the time Piri Reis drew the map and inconceivable in the time of Alexander
the Great when, presumably, Piri Reis' sources drew their maps. To Professor
Hapgood the conversions of the underlying lines of latitude and longitude
are vital. "They establish beyond any doubt the extraordinary accuracy of
the maps, clearly beyond the capability of any medieval or ancient cartographers
known to us."

Hapgood and his students also examined the late medieval and early
Renaissance maps called "portulans" or "portolanos." These were highly accurate
mariners' charts of the Mediterranean area- -sometimes including the Black
Sea--made by Portuguese, Venetian, Spanish, Catalan and Arab seamen. They
are extremely beautiful maps, but what struck Hapgood was their accuracy.
How, Hapgood asked, could medieval sailors, with no navigational aids but
the compass have prepared such accurate charts?

Hapgood was not the only one -- nor the first -- to have been puzzled
by portolano maps. Years before, the Norwegian scholar Nordenskjold -- the
leading authority on them -- had shown that all portolanos appear to be based
on a single prototype -- that had vanished. But, says Hapgood, Nordenskjold
did not check the mathematical foundation and so postulated that the lost
prototype was product of classical Greece or Phoenicia, whereas Hapgood's
researchers concluded that the Greek geographers, from whom Piri Reis had
taken certain basic data, had to have used still other maps as sources because
the data on the Greeks' maps was drawn with a precision that predated Greece's
own development -- about 200 B.C.--of plane geometry and trigonometry. And
without knowledge of geometry and trigonometry, they said, no one could have
produced such accurate maps.

The matter of accuracy, in fact, is debatable. But according to Hapgood,
his examination of one portolano--the Dulcert Portolano of 1339, drawn 153
years before Columbus -- is conclusive proof that the Portolanos, at
least, are "scientific products."

Although this portolano covers an area measuring 3,000 miles by 1,000
miles, 50 localities in the area are pin-pointed with less than one degree
of error in longitude and latitude, as reprojected by Hapgood.

The researchers also examined, compared and recalculated the work of numerous
geographers from Ptolemy through the Renaissance -- including the first world
map made by Mercator, a seminal figure in cartography, and a remarkable map
dated 1380 called the "Zeno Map." It seemed to show Greenland too without
an ice cap.

Thus, gradually, Hapgood, after exhaustive research and imaginative
mathematical and cartographic experiments, came to his conclusions and,
eventually, published them in a book called "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings"
(Chilton Books, Philadelphia, 1966). Briefly these are the conclusions:

- that the Piri Reis map, the portolano charts and many
other ancient maps include information
supposedly unknown in the 16th century and, in some cases,
information that was not confirmed
until the middle of this century.

- that the Piri Reis map and other maps were inexplicably
accurate, particularly with regard to
longitudes, which neither mariners nor cartographers
could calculate until spherical trigonometry
was developed in the 17th and 18th centuries.

- that some civilization or culture still unknown to archeology
-- and pre-dating any civilization
known so far -- had mapped North America, China,
Greenland, South America and Antarctica
long before the rise of any known civilization -- and
at a time when Greenland and Antarctica
were not covered with their millennia-old ice caps.

- that to have done this, the ancient civilization had to
have developed astronomy, navigational
instruments -- such as the chronometer -- and mathematics,
particularly plane geometry and
trigonometry, long before Greece or any other known
civilization.

- that the advanced cartographic knowledge appearing on
the Piri Reis map, the Oronteus Finaeus map
and other maps came down in garbled and incomplete fragments
that somehow survived the destruction
of the unknown civilization itself and the repeated
destruction of such ancient repositories of knowledge
as the library at Alexandria.

These hypotheses, obviously, were revolutionary and some reviews of "Maps
of the Ancient Sea Kings" were, predictably, skeptical in tone. Yet one American
reviewer called it a "seminal book," an English reviewer called it "provocative"
and Kenneth R. Stunkel, who challenged the conclusions in Britain's "Geographical
Review," admitted that Hapgood's work on ancient maps was ". . . a model
of thoroughness and meticulous engagement with a complex and elusive subject."
Furthermore, Hapgood, before publishing his book, had submitted it to John
K. Wright, director of the American Geographical Society for 11 years.

Wright -- a geographer and cartographer -- said that Hapgood "posed
hypotheses that cry aloud for further testing."

Unfortunately, from Hapgood's point of view, his theories were not tested.
Most scholars, in fact, seem to have ignored them. As noted, there is relatively
little -- with the exception of Paul Kahle's book -- written on the Piri
Reis maps by scholars.

This may be because Hapgood himself, quoting Thomas Edison, had said that
some problems are too difficult for specialists and must be left to amateurs
-- and most scientists took him at his word. They largely ignored him.

This was not entirely unexpected. As writer J. Enterline put it, in
discussing the response of science to the Hapgood hypotheses, acceptance
"engendered the necessity of so many accessory explanations, rationalizations
and postulates that it became untenable." But their basis for rejecting it,
said Enterline--who was also skeptical -- was not because of any demonstrated
counter proof but because it seemed to violate common sense and probability
-- which, he added, is also true of modern physics.

To put it another way, Hapgood's work simply cannot be lumped with the
lunatic fringe and he certainly cannot be held responsible for the
"Chariots"-level offshoots that fed on his research. Although unquestionably
an amateur theoretician, he did do his homework and had it thoroughly checked
by professionals. The U.S. Air Force SAC cartographers, for example, worked
with him for two years and fully endorsed his conclusions about Antarctica.

Nonetheless, there are serious weaknesses in Hapgood's case. For one thing,
Hapgood's theses depend entirely on mathematical projections and logic. While
he admittedly reasons carefully from observation to conclusion--and had his
calculations done by an M.I.T. mathematician -- he obviously cannot produce
any of the "advanced" maps or display a single artifact from the "lost"
civilization that supposedly mapped the Americas and Antarctica.

For another, he may not have accorded enough importance, at least in
the Caribbean portions of the Piri Reis map, to the Christopher Columbus
map -- as a close examination of the Piri Reis map may show. Lastly, he was
led by his own logic into postulating an ice-free Antarctic -- which conflicts
totally with accepted geological theory that says the Antarctic ice cap has
been in place for 50 million years.

There are other arguments too. One is that many place names on the map,
written in the Turco-Arabic script, are clearly transliterations of the
Portuguese and Spanish. If, as the Hapgood hypotheses suggest, Piri Reis
used maps drawn by ancient cartographers, why don't the place names at least
reflect their language?

The most compelling arguments against the Hapgood hypotheses, however,
concern the Andes and--above all -- Antarctica, both vital to Hapgood's
conclusions. Is the chain of mountains to the left of the map really the
Andes? Is the coastline at the bottom really Antarctica? Are there any mountains
shown there? And is Antarctica free of ice?

A cursory examination would certainly suggest that the mountains are
the Andes; they are the most striking topographical feature on the map. But
beside the mountains there is an inscription that doesn't quite fit into
Hapgood's scenario. It reads: "In the mountains of this territory were creatures
like this, and human beings came out on the seacoast. . ."

Assuming the inscription refers to the eastern coast, this means that
"to come out on the seacoast," those "human beings" would have had to walk
all the way from, say, Peru, rather than from one of the ranges near the
Brazilian coast. And as to the llama, is it really a llama? The animal shown
on the map definitely has horns and the llama definitely does not.

The reference, of course, might have been to the Pacific coast. But that
also poses an awkward problem--as a look at the map suggests. Hapgood assumed
that the western base of the mountain chain coincided with the Pacific coast
of South America. If so, Hapgood is correct that the west coast, the Pacific
and the Andes must have been known before Balboa and Magellan. And thus those
"human beings" could have come down from the Andes.

Unfortunately the heavy black line to the south of the mountains and
the reddish line at the base of the mountains probably do not indicate the
west coast. For one thing, the long inscription covers terra incognita--"unknown
land" -- and for another, neither the Pacific Ocean nor the Strait of Magellan
are shown. Is it reasonable to suppose that the advanced mariners of ancient
times could locate the Andes and miss the Pacific Ocean?

A similar argument applies to the section of coast which by rights should
correspond with the Isthmus of Panama, Central American, the Gulf of Mexico
and Florida. Even allowing for the necessary distortions that Hapgood's
"equidistant projection" would entail, this section of coast bears only the
most tenuous relationship to reality -- and raises still another doubt. Would
Hapgood's hypothetical, highly advanced civilization -- capable of sailing
to the New World and mapping it -- have done such an incredibly bad
job?

The same question applies to the coast of South America where -- as Hapgood
admits -- his advanced cartographers lost 900 miles of coastline. As a look
at the map will show, the coast, below the Rio de la Plata, simply turns
east and becomes, according to Hapgood, Antarctica. This part of the Antarctica
hypothesis--the key part--is actually the weakest. First, the hypothetical
cartographers left out the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn. Next, they connected
the coastline of "Antarctica" to South America and extended it
eastward.

There is, admittedly, a resemblance between the Piri Reis "Antarctic"
coast and modern maps of the area. But the resemblance is slight. Indeed
if this section of the map were to run vertically -- that is, to the south
-- it would bear a much closer resemblance to the east coast of South America
and could thus restore some of the missing 900 miles. This is by no means
impossible: some of the more distinctive coastal features of the Piri Reis'
"Antarctica" do jibe remarkably well with those on a modern map of South
America. But if it were true, "Antarctica" would not be Antarctica after
all; it would be South America -- which, of course, was never covered
with ice -- and the animals drawn on the map would not be in an ice-free
Antarctica, but in South America. Last--and a key point -- the famous "mountains"
in Antarctica that so excited Mallery and Hapgood, and were presumably "clearly
indicated," appear as islands, not mountains.

On the other hand, some of the objections are themselves open to debate
and Hapgood himself anticipated and answered many of them.

To start with, Hapgood and his advocates knew full well that to suggest
a "lost world," with its echoes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and subsequent
science-fiction elaborations, might well evoke merciless public scorn from
scholars and scientists--as the writings of the late Immanuel Velikovsky
had in the 1950's and as "Chariots of the Gods" did in 1968. The existence
of this "lost civilization," after all, could only be inferred; there were
no artifacts.

Hapgood, therefore, pointed out in "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" that
civilizations have vanished before. No one knew where Sumer, Akkad, Nineveh
and Babylon were until 19th-century archeologists dug them up. And as late
as 1970 -- only ten years ago -- no one even suspected the existence of a
civilization called Ebla. It had existed. It was real. But it vanished without
a trace. Why then, argue Hapgood advocates, couldn't there have been other
civilizations that vanished?

The same is true of Hapgood's unspecified advanced technology. Greek
fire -- something like napalm -- was developed in the ninth century but its
composition has never been duplicated. Arab scientists of the Golden Age
were able to perform delicate eye surgery -- using advanced instruments --
but these skills were later lost. And in 1900, according to "Scientific
American," archeologists discovered an astoundingly advanced gearing system
in a Greek navigational instrument. It dated back to 65 B.C. and its existence
had never been suspected.

Hapgood addressed more specific criticisms too. He had not overlooked
the fact that on the map the Andes seemed to be in the center of South America,
nor ignored the possibility that, maybe, they were mountains on the east
coast drawn out of proportion, or drawn on the basis of information, rather
than observation -- or even drawn in to account for the great rivers emptying
into the sea. And his answer is persuasive: could Piri Reis, entirely by
chance, have placed a range of enormous mountains in approximately the same
place where there is a range of enormous mountains? Furthermore, there is
the notation on the Piri Reis map: "The gold mines are endless."

Doesn't this suggest Peru, which is rich in gold?

With regard to Antarctica, there is also the inscription on "Antarctica"
describing night "two hours" long -- which does suggest Antarctic
latitudes.

There is, moreover, the perplexing problem of the Oronteus Finaeus map.
Even if Piri Reis' "Antarctica" turns out to be South America -- drawn
horizontally -- or even Australia, the Finnaeus "Antarctica" is surely Antarctica
and his map was also drawn in the 16th century: 1531. Where did Oronteus
Finaeus get his far more detailed and accurate information? and why does
Finaeus also show Antarctica without an ice cap?

Furthermore, the Hapgood team identified 50 geographical points on the
Finaeus map, as re-projected, whose latitudes and longitudes were located
quite accurately in latitude and longitude, some of them quite close to the
pole. "The mathematical probability against this being accidental," says
Hapgood, "is astronomical."

There are other factors too. The cartography of the Age of Discovery,
for instance, often seems to have been independent of the voyages themselves;
that is certain early maps of America contain features before their supposed
date of discovery.

The most notable example of this is the map of America made by Glareanus,
a famous Swiss poet, mathematician and theoretical geographer, in the year
1510. This map, which was probably based on the 1504 de Canerio map, clearly
shows the west coast of America 12 years before Magellan passed through
the strait that bears his name. In other words, Piri Reis was not the only
one to include anachronous information.

The map of Glareanus, furthermore, was reproduced in Johannes de Stobnicza's
famous 1512 Cracow edition of Ptolemy and is unquestionably similar to the
map of Piri Reis. Did Piri Reis have a copy of this early printed edition
of Ptolemy before him when he drew his map? Is this what Piri Reis
meant by "maps drawn in the time of Alexander the Great"?

Again, this is plausible, since to the Arabs -- and later the Ottomans--the
second century (A.D.) geographer Ptolemy was often confused with the earlier
General Ptolemy -- Alexander's general, Ptolemy I, who became king in Egypt
in the fourth century B.C. and was an ancestor of Cleopatra. Still, where
did de Canerio and Glareanus get their information?

The subject of the Piri Reis map, obviously, is enormously complex--as
well as a great deal of fun. It involves Christopher Columbus, his sources
of information, his conclusions and even his motives. It involves two
Ottoman naval captains and 20 unknown or vaguely identified maps. It involves
the portolano charts that seem to be based on a single lost source, the Zeno
map -- with an ice-free Greenland -- and the Finaeus map, possibly the most
inexplicable of all. It involves, in sum, questions that are not only fascinating
but, so far, unanswered--except by Charles Hapgood.

The Hapgood hypotheses, therefore, cannot be just dismissed - - if only
because it is indisputable that famous maps known to have existed have been
lost. None of the maps from the classical world, in fact, have survived.
The maps accompanying Ptolemy's great work on geography, for example, were
quickly lost and the earliest maps based upon his test were drawn 1,000 years
after he wrote. Marinus of Tyre, precursor of Ptolemy, is a shadowy figure
whose works have perished. And the great library at Alexandria, the chief
depository of classical learning, was repeatedly destroyed.

It is reliably reported by an Arab author, moreover, that a globe of the
world by Ptolemy -- the geographer -- existed in Cairo in the 14th century.
Arabic literature contains numerous tantalizing mentions of "lost maps."
The 10th century author Ibn Nadim, for example, speaks of a Persian map of
the world drawn on silk in colored paints -- conceivably a copy of a classical
map, but in any case lost to history.

As maps by their nature are perishable -- even maps by such well-known
and relatively recent cartographers as Mercator are extremely rare--is it
so improbable that Hapgood's mysterious maps did exist and did vanish?

Admittedly, the answer of many cartographers and historians would be,
yes it is improbable. The Hapgood hypotheses, after all, challenge basic
and long-standing historical and geological premises. But Hapgood, now retired
and living in Florida, remains confident that his theories will be accepted
eventually.

"After all," he said, "they haven't even been examined yet." Hapgood,
furthermore, is still working on his hypotheses. Last year he finished revisions
of both books and one of them, "Sea Kings," was published by E.P. Dutton
& Company, New York and by Turnstone Books, London, in October. The other
will be published this year. Beyond that, however, he has no plans to fight
for either attention or acceptance. "I will not wear myself out trying to
persuade people with pre-fixed ideas. My books speak for themselves and someday,
I think, they will be acknowledged."

It is unlikely, of course, that such acknowledgement will be forthcoming
soon, if ever; as the supplementary articles suggest, there could be other
explanations. Furthermore, the work of an obscure 16th-century Ottoman admiral
does not command a high priority on science's crowded calendars. But it is
not impossible either. Increasingly, scientific writers and critics are beginning
to re-examine some of the traditional premises and several, as recently as
last year, have openly objected to the kind of cool dismissal that the Hapgood
theories received on publication. In the magazine "New Scientist," for example,
several articles in 1979 focused on what they call "deviant science" and
one critic said that it is from deviant science "That seminal ideas sometimes
arise, later to be accepted as scientific orthodoxy." One example is the
highly controversial Velikovsky--who died just two months ago. In addition
to other, admittedly fanciful theories, Velikovsky hypothesized that Venus
and Mars had once disturbed the rotation of the earth on its axis; he was
not only belittled but threatened. Yet, according to the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica," space probes have subsequently verified some details of his
theory.

Verification of the Hapgood hypotheses of course, would require highly
persuasive evidence. As a "New Scientist" writer quoted, "extraordinary claims
demand extraordinary proof," and in the case of Professor Hapgood that means
location of the "lost" civilization or at least one of the "advanced" source
maps presumably use by Piri Reis.

But this, says Hapgood, is not impossible. Somewhere, he thinks,
those source maps exist: hidden, perhaps, amid the massive collections of
documents crammed into museums and archives in Istanbul, many still unexamined.
No search for the source has ever been made, Hapgood says, but when there
is "the result might be a discovery of vast importance."

His view, given the reception of his hypotheses, is natural. But it is
by no means implausible. In 1955, a cartographer named M. Destombes announced
the discovery of Ferdinand Magellan's own chart of his epochal circumnavigation
of the world. No one had known it existed, but Destombes found it--in the
archives of Istanbul.

Ferdinand Magellan, initiator and leader of the firstexpedition
to circumnavigate the globe, in 1519-22, never received the acclaim he deserved
for his great feat. Compared toColumbus's voyage of 8,000 miles over
the relatively quietAtlantic, Magellan's expedition of 42,000 miles
-- 22,000 of themover waters no white man had ever seen -- was an
achievementwithout parallel in an era of fragile wooden ships.

Few voyages have been so filled with intrigue, treachery,mutiny,
murder, scurvy, starvation, and death. Only a lone,bedraggled ship
out of a fleet of five managed to complete thejourney.

Magellan and his friend the astronomer Ruy de Falero proposed to King
Charles V (of Spain) that a westward voyage around the tip of South America
would take them to the Moluccas (spice-rich islands) and avoid the Portuguese
(with whom they were competing fiercely). The voyage began September 8, 1519,
and lasted until September 6, 1522 (almost 3 years). Magellan sailed from
Seville, Spain, with five ships, the Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepcion, Victoria,
and Santiago. Three years later, only one ship (the Victoria) made it back
to Seville, carrying only 18 of the original 270 crew members. Magellan was
killed towards the end of the voyage, in the Philippines, during a battle
with the natives. The Basque navigator Juan Sebastián de Elcano (del
Cano) completed the trip.

He was the first explorer to lead an expedition around the world.

Early Life

Magellan's parents died when he was only 10 years old. At the age of 12,
he was appointed as the queen’s messenger in the royal court. Young boys
were appointed as messenger as a source of education. At the court, the young
Magellan learned about many famous explorers and the most important information
about navigating ships.

First Expedition

Magellan's first time at sea was in 1505 when he was 25 years old. He
sailed with Francisco de Almedia, Portugal’s first admiral, and his fleet.
In 1511, he went on an expedition to conquer Melaka. After their victory,
a Portuguese fleet sailed to the Spice Islands (also known as the Moluccas
Islands). Portugal claimed the islands at this time. One of Magellan's close
friends, Francisco Serrao, went on the voyage and wrote to him. In his letters
he described the route and the island of Ternate.

Planning for a Long Trip

Serrao’s letters helped build in Magellan's mind the location of the Spice
Islands, which later became the destination for yhe great voyage. Magellan
asked the King of Portugal to support the journey, but was refused. Magellan
then begged the King of Spain to support the journey. Magellan easily convinced
the teenaged Spanish king, Charles I (also known as the Holy Roman emperor
Charles V) that at least some of the Spice Islands lay in the Spanish half
of the undiscovered world. He was interested in the plan since Spain was
looking for a better sea route to Asia than the Portuguese route around the
southern tip of Africa. It was going to be hard to find sailors, though.
None of the Spanish sailors wanted to sail with Magellan because he was
Portuguese. He was forced to take anybody who signed on, whether they were
good seamen or not. Parts of the crew were prisoners, released from jail
in return for sailing with him.

Journey Around the World

In September of 1519, Magellan's crew and he said their prayers and set
sail for southern Spain with five ships -- the Santiago, the San Antonio,
the Conception, the Trinidad, and the Victoria. At first, all went well.
The small fleet sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and reached South America.
Stocking up with goods and sailing down the coastline they searched for a
passage through this great continent. They were unable to find a route through
South America! They sailed further and further south, sailing into every
river and bay they came upon. The weather was getting colder, and the crew
was were running out of supplies. The weather was so bad, the fleet decided
to spend the winter in Patagonia. The area where they settled on March 31,
1520, was called San Julian.

When Magellan reached Patagonia (present-day Argentina), another mutiny
was attempted. Cartegena, released by captain Mendoza, attempted once again
to take over the fleet and have Magellan killed. The Portuguese explorer
was able to put down the rebellion by marooning Cartegena in the barren
Patagonia, imprisoning some, and having Quesada and other rebels executed.
The men who started the mutiny were hanged.

During the cold summer months, Magellan sent the Santiago on a reconnaissance
mission down the coast to look for a passage to the other side of the continent.
Unfortunately in May, the Santiago wrecked in rough seas. In the latter half
of August, Magellan decided it was time to move the remaining four ships
south to look for a passage. Finally in October of 1520 the fleet sighted
a strait and started through it. Magellan named it the strait of All Saints,
but it later was named after him. The strait was a tricky passage that took
the fleet 38 days to pass through. While sailing at night, the crew saw countless
fires from distant Indian camps. They called the land Tierra del Fuego (land
of fire). During the passage, the captain of the San Antonio sailed his ship
back toward Spain, taking with him most of the fleet's provisions. The loss
of the San Antonio was a severe blow to the men on the remaining ships. They
had to double their efforts to hunt game and fish to keep from starving.

They finally arrived at the ocean that Balboa had discovered several years
before. It was named the Pacific Ocean because of its calm waters. They sailing
for weeks across this ocean with no sign of land. Magellan mistakenly thought
the Spice Islands were a short voyage away. He had no idea of the immense
size of the ocean and thought he could cross it in two to three days. The
voyage took approximately four months. The drinking water stunk and started
to get slimy. The crew was forced to eat rats! Many of the crew suffered
from scurvy. One of the other captains deserted and sailed the San Antonio
back to Spain. In March of 1521, Magellan arrived in Guam, an island in the
Pacific. From there, they headed for the Moluccas.

Magellan never made it to the Spice Islands. He was caught in a war in
the Philippine islands. The crew faced a group of natives who killed Magellan
with a poisoned arrow in the foot and a spear through the heart. After Magellan
died, Sebastian del Cano took over the remaining three ships and 115 survivors.
Because there were not enough men to crew three ships, del Cano had the
Concepcion burned. Magellan's body was left behind. Only two ships actually
reached the Spice Islands because the Santiago was sunk in a storm. The two
remaining ships sailed from the Philippines on May 1 and made it to the Moluccas
(Spice Islands) in November. Both ships loaded with valuable spices. . The
crew loaded both ships with a rich cargo and headed for Spain. On the way
home, the Portuguese who had claimed the Spice Islands captured the Trinidad.
The Victoria was the only ship to make it safely back to Spain. Out of the
five ships that began the journey, only one ship made the voyage around the
world. Out of 250 men, only 18 survived…Magellan was not one of them.

John Cabot (c1450-1498) was an experienced Italian seafarer who came
to live in England during the reign of Henry VII. In 1497 he sailed west
from Bristol hoping to find a shorter route to Asia, a land believed to be
rich in gold, gems and other luxuries. After a month, he discovered an unknown
land  he called it 'new found land', today still known as Newfoundland
in Canada. His son, Sebastian Cabot, may also have been on this voyage.

Why did John Cabot come to England?

Probably born in Genoa around 1450, and later a citizen of Venice, Cabot's
Italian name was Giovanni Caboto. He had read of fabulous Chinese cities
in the writings of Marco Polo and wanted to see them for himself. He hoped
to reach them by sailing west, across the Atlantic. Like Christopher Columbus,
who also planned to sail west, Cabot found it very difficult to convince
rich backers to pay for the ships he needed to test out his ideas about the
world. After failing to persuade the royal courts of Europe, he decided to
come to England. He arrived with his family in 1484, to try to persuade merchants
in Bristol to pay for his planned voyage. Before his voyage set off, Cabot
heard the news that Columbus had sailed west across the Atlantic and reached
land. At the time, everyone believed that this land was the Indies, or Spice
Islands.

Why did King Henry VII agree to help to pay for Cabot's expedition?

If Cabot was proved right about the new route, he would not be the only
one to become rich. The king would also take his share. Everybody believed
that Cathay and Cipangu (China and Japan) were rich in gold, gems, spices
and silks. If Asia had been where Cabot thought it was, it would have made
England the greatest trading centre in the world for goods from the east.

The king wrote that he gave his permission to his 'well-beloved John
Cabot......to seeke out, discover and finde whatsoever isles, countries,
regions or provinces......which before this time have been unknown to all
Christians.'

What did Cabot find on his voyage?

John Cabot's ship, the Mathew, sailed from Bristol with a crew of eighteen
in 1497. After a month at sea, he landed and took the area in the name of
King Henry VII. The king had agreed to his voyage and helped to pay for it.
Cabot had landed on one of the northern capes of Newfoundland. His sailors
were able to catch huge numbers of cod simply by dipping baskets into the
water. Cabot was rewarded with the sum of £10 by the king, for discovering
a new island off the coast of China! The king would have been far more generous
if Cabot had brought home spices.

How did John Cabot die?

In 1498, John Cabot was given permission by Henry VII to take ships on
a new expedition to continue west from the point he had reached on his first
voyage. The aim was to discover Japan. Cabot made a visit to Spain and Portugal
to try to recruit men who had sailed with Columbus, but without much success.
He set out from Bristol with 300 men in May 1498. The five ships carried
supplies for a year's travelling. Cabot and his crews were never heard of
again

A new study by NASA's Goddard Institute found Greenland glaciers appear
to be spewing icebergs into the ocean faster than in the past. The finding
was unexpected, and raises the possiblity that global sea levels, already
projected to rise 20 inches next century, could increase even faster.

Predictions that global warming will be greatest in the polar regions
are now being borne out. Arctic sea ice has been shrinking by 3% each decade
since 1970. Several of the years with the smallest sea ice coverage were
in the 1990s. Around the Antarctic Peninsula, extensive sea ice formed four
winters out of every five in the mid-century. Since the 1970s that dropped
to 1-2 winters out of five.

Several Peninsula ice shelves, which attach to the continent but stretch
into the sea, are in retreat. Some of the most dramatic losses came in 1998,
when around 2,000 square miles calved into icebergs. The loss in one year
equaled the average of 10-15. The Larsen A ice shelf, after years of slowly
melting away, suddenly disintegrated in 1995. Scientists have now mounted
a death watch for Larsen B and Wilkens, together three times larger than
Delaware.

Since ice shelves already displace water, the loss will not add to rising
ocean levels. But melting northern tundra could have a devastating global
effect. Carbon in tundra soils, equal to one-third that in the atmosphere,
could be released.

Like many glaciers in this part of the Antarctic, the Marr has been
retreating at a surprising rate over the past quarter century. Every year,
more rock emerges from beneath the melting wall of ice behind Palmer Station,
a 40-man United States research station run by the National Science Foundation.
Scientists arriving after a year's absence are surprised to find new beaches,
outcroppings, even islands that had been hidden for thousands of years under
the ice.

The Antarctic Peninsula region - a thousand-mile arm of glaciated land
and islands reaching northward toward the tip of South America - has seen
average temperatures increase by almost 5 degrees F. in the last 50 years.

As the region warms, glaciers have retreated, and floating ice shelves
that may have formed many thousands of years ago have collapsed. Glaciologists
ponder the possible future ramifications for even larger ice formations to
the south. Collapse would raise world sea levels by as much as 18 feet.

Rodolfo del Valle, director of geoscience at the Argentine Antarctic
Institute in Buenos Aires, knows just how dramatic climate change can be.
In 1995, he and his colleagues were at their base camp on a rocky outcropping
in the midst of the Larsen-A Ice Shelf, a floating ice sheet the size of
Rhode Island and 500 feet thick. They used the shelf as a sort of highway,
driving snow machines between geological sites on the peninsula.

One day, the shelf collapsed with a thunderous roar. In a mere two hours,
the Argentine team found themselves standing not on a rocky outcropping,
but on an island surrounded by open water and enormous icebergs.

"I felt a sadness, a pain in my heart for the loss of a place that had
become like a home to me," del Valle recalls. "I've experienced strong
earthquakes on land, but this was different. After an earthquake something
remains. But not with the ice shelf - it was completely destroyed."

The much smaller Wordie ice shelf disappeared in the late 1980s. Cracks
have formed in the Larsen-B shelf - now the northernmost shelf on the continent
- and experts believe it could break up at any time.

Whether the earth is warming or cooling depends on when you begin making
measurements. Over the last two decades, satellite sensors show that the
earth has been cooling. If measurements begin in 1850, at the end of the
little ice age and the point alarmists love to start their charts, the earth
has heated about 1 degree C.

For the last couple of decades, we have had satellite readings of both
land and sea temperatures. Prior to that, for about a century or so, temperature
readings were confined mostly to land. Prior to that, scientists rely on
historical data.

From about 800 a.d. to 1200 a.d., the earth's average climate was warmer
than it is today-at least 1 degree C warmer-the same amount everyone is panicked
about. It was the period when Vikings crossed the oceans in open boats without
cabins and were able to settle and raise crops in Greenland, because it wasn't
covered with a sheet of ice. Note that the oceans didn't flood the continents.
Scientists refer to this period of time as the "climactic optimum"-an optimum
and not a disaster!

From 1200 a.d. onward, the earth began to cool. The period between 1450
and 1850 is the period scientists refer to as the "little ice age." The Vikings
had to abandon Greenland since it became covered with perpetual ice.

The most severe storms of history set in during this time and are related
to global cooling rather than global warming. The worst storms on record
in the North Sea occurred during this time. Storms in 1421 and 1446 claimed
100,000 lives while a storm in 1570 claimed over 400,000.

Only two of the 20 deadliest storms occurred since 1962 and none of them
occurred in the 1980s or 1990s, when we were first warned about the global
warming "crisis."

By 1850, the cooling cycle reversed and the earth began warming to the
temperature norms we see today. It is clear the earth passes through normal
long-term cycles, attributed to sunspot cycles and other factors.

Our current fluctuations are normal variations not caused by human
activity.

Is There a Consensus?

There is still much debate and absolutely no consensus among scientists
about global warming, no matter how hard President Clinton tries to tell
us otherwise.

In 1992, over 400 scientists from around the world signed the Heidelberg
Appeal prior to the UNCED conference in Rio. They expressed their doubts
about global warming and asked the delegates not to bind the world to any
radical treaties based on global warming. Today scientists agreeing with
the Heidelberg Appeal number over 4,000!

The UN's IPCC report on climate change put together by atmospheric scientists
meeting in Bonn, Germany last year had significant sections by atmospheric
scientists who said there is not enough data to suggest that man is radically
altering the temperature on the planet.

When the report was published, however, the United Nations had systematically
removed that information in over a dozen pages to eliminate the appearance
of disagreement. The scientists were outraged at politics hijacking science
by means of fraud. But you'll still hear global warming buffs cite the UN
report as saying that the scientists all agree that global warming is a fact.
That's an outright lie and they know it.

Does CO2 Cause Global Warming?

The planet's temperature increased 1.5 degrees C since the mid 19th century,
two-thirds of which occurred before 1940, when carbon dioxide emissions by
humans were minimal. Since 1979, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels
have risen 19%; yet the planet cooled 0.09 degree C during that period. One
must seriously ask how the earth's temperature rose before human-caused CO2
was put into the atmosphere? This is a case of an effect coming before the
cause.

The chief hothouse gas is water vapor-not carbon dioxide or methane.
It accounts for over 90% of global heat retention. Currently, human activity
puts about 6 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year. Non-human
activity, mostly volcanoes, accounts for about 200 billion tons. Human activity,
then, constitutes 2-3% of carbon dioxide, which itself is less than 10% of
the total. As professor of physics at Purdue University L. van Zandt said
in the National Review:

Human activity, carried out at the present rate indefinitely (more than
12 years) cannot possibly account for more than 6 per cent of the observed
change in CO2 levels. Entirely shutting off civilization-or even killing
everybody-could only have a tiny effect on global warming, if there is any
such thing.1 He went on to say:

Why do all these supposedly educated, supposedly sane people want to
end civilization? Since humanity can't possibly be causing the CO2 level
to go up, isn't it time to start wondering about what is?

.

NORTH POLE MELTING???

NASA CHART

North Pole faces a major meltdown

Norwegian experts say the ice cap could disappear in summer within half
century

Tuesday, July 11, 2000

By WALTER GIBB

THE NEW YORK TIMES

OSLO, Norway -- The mythic icescape that stretches south in all directions
from the North Pole is melting so fast that Norwegian scientists say it could
disappear entirely each summer beginning in just 50 years, radically altering
the Earth's environment, the global economy and the human imagination.

Climatologists have warned for a decade that the northern ice cap is
retreating. But researchers at the University of Bergen's Nansen Environmental
and Remote Sensing Center are apparently the first to predict the disorienting
specter of a watery North Pole open to cruise ships and the Polar Bear Swim
Club within the lives of today's young people. )

"The changes we've seen have been much faster and more dramatic than
most people imagine," said Tore Furevik, 31, a polar researcher and co-author
of the article "Toward an Ice-Free Arctic?" in the latest issue of the Norwegian
science journal Cicerone.

Not all ice specialists agree with Furevik, but his 50-year projection
is supported by the director of the Bergen research center, Professor Ola
Johannessen, whose own study will appear in the fall issue of Science Progress,
a British journal.

Johannessen, 61, said the pull-back and thinning of Arctic sea ice have
outstripped the theoretical effect of global warming from greenhouse gases
by a factor of three.

"The greenhouse is here, no doubt about it, but there is more to it,"
he said, speculating that a conjunction of long-term oscillations in North
Atlantic air pressure have exacerbated the Arctic meltdown. If so, he said,
the cycles will eventually decouple and the ice, or what's left of it, could
regain stability.

Since 1978, the coverage of Arctic sea ice in winter has decreased by
6 percent, an area the size of Texas, according to satellite pictures.

As for average ice thickness in late summer, submarine sonar measurements
since the 1950s have shown a decline to 5.9 feet from 10.2 feet, or 42
percent.

The Norwegian countdown to zero ice is based partly on extrapolation
of the submarine data and partly on Johannessen's discovery last year that
hard-core, year-round ice is shrinking twice as fast as the overall winter
perimeter.

While an ice-free Arctic Ocean would likely disrupt the global environment,
researchers said, it could have positive economic aspects.

It could shorten shipping routes, for example, and expand the range of
offshore oil drillers. Rich new fishing and aquaculture zones would likely
appear, though established fisheries to the south could decline.

Dr. Drew Rothrock, an oceanographer at the University of Washington's
Polar Science Center who has studied sea ice for decades, agreed that Arctic
sea ice is on a trajectory to disappear in 50 years. But, he added, that
does not mean it will continue on that path.

He said the ice was being expelled from the Arctic by abnormally strong
winds before it could achieve its accustomed thickness. Data compiled by
Rothrock and two colleagues suggest that sea ice thickness has more to do
with localized wind and weather than with overall climate change.

"I think it is quite possible that in the next 10 years we will see the
winds revert to a more historical pattern, so that the ice begins to reside
longer in the Arctic and thicken up again," Rothrock said. "I would be cautious
about predicting doom."

Unlike the ice in a pond, Arctic sea ice consists of independent floes
of varying age that glom together, pull apart or pile up on one another in
reaction to wind and currents. In winter, it extends as far south as Hudson
Bay in Canada. By late summer it pulls back to the roughly circular Arctic
basin.

The seeming permanence and impregnability of the northern icescape have
given it almost continental status in the human imagination. As a mythic
anchor point, the North Pole, home of Santa Claus, has few geographic rivals.
The ancient Greeks and 19th century theosophists believed humanity originated
there.

"The North Pole is the strongest symbol of mankind's struggle against,
and with, nature," said the Norwegian adventurer Boerge Ousland, the first
man to ski there alone without aerial reprovisioning, in 1994. "If the ice
disappears, well, I just can't imagine it."

The sea ice is thickest above North America, where Canadian islands and
the fingers of northern Greenland act as a sieve in the current. As the floes
stack up there, they create pressure ridges up to 40 feet high.

By contrast, a branch of the warm-water Gulf Stream keeps Norway's north
coast ice-free. That warm flow continues under the ice along most of the
northern Siberian coast.

If the trend continues, it is there, the Eurasian Arctic, that the first
significant opening of ice-clogged water is expected.

Russia, Scandinavia and Japan are laying plans. Government ministers
and shipping executives met in Oslo last fall and declared that "considerable
profit potential" existed for a shipping lane linking Western Europe and
Asia across the mellowing Arctic.

Ships using the Arctic to move cargo from Hamburg to Yokohama would save
about 4,800 miles compared with today's route through the Suez Canal. Receding
ice could open the way for a parade of cargo ships.

Ivan Ivanov, leader of an Arctic shipping demonstration project carried
out by Finland's Fortum energy company, said the Russian Arctic shelf contains
three times the oil of Saudi Arabia.

Polar bears and other creatures face a bleak future if their habitat
keeps liquefying. So do Eskimo populations that rely on the ice for game
such as seals and walruses.

Alan Springer, a wildlife specialist at the University of Alaska in
Fairbanks, said Alaska's 250,000 walruses seem to have suffered weight loss
and stress from retraction of the pack ice they need for resting and raising
pups.

"The sea ice in summer has been receding so far north that it carries
the walruses into very deep water, far from their optimal feeding ground,"
Springer said.

Furevik, the Norwegian researcher, said he could foresee ice-dwelling
mammals making "a desperate last stand" north of Greenland, where he believes
the final patch of Arctic sea ice will linger before vanishing into the waves
in about 2050.

The Greenland ice cap is thinning around the edges and slightly thickening
in the center. Click on this map to see a larger version

July 20, 2000

(CNN) -- An ice cap covering much of Greenland is shrinking rapidly and
releasing enough water to raise sea levels, according to a report released
Thursday.

NASA scientists flew over Greenland in 1993 and 1994, and again in 1998
and 1999, using airborne lasers to measure the thickness of the ice sheet,
which covers nearly 85 percent of the island. Their research shows it is
thinning around the edges at a rate of about three feet (1 meter) a year.

Ice at the center of Greenland is becoming slightly thicker. But as it
turns out, that progression is the result of weather changes related to the
loss of ice over the remainder of the island, NASA scientists said.

After Antarctica, Greenland's ice cap contains the second largest mass
of frozen freshwater in the world. The Arctic island has a net loss of about
50 billion gallons (227 billion liters) of ice each year, which can cause
a measurable rise in sea levels.

CNN's David George reports NASA studies show the Greenland ice cap is
shrinking a quarter-inch per year.

Is the thinning ice cap evidence of global warming?

In one lifetime, the rise would be nearly 1 centimeter (0.4 inches),
if the rate were to remain the same, according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center, which coordinated the study research.

Should that rate increase, or other factors push the level higher, the
result could prove disastrous.

"When you consider a flat beach, an inch in sea level rise covers a large
horizontal distance," said NASA researcher Waleed Abdalati. "There are instances
where there are large storm events because the water's closer to the land.
So it's something to be studied. It's something to be considered."

The NASA report, published in the July 21 issue of Science, does not
mention global warming. But some scientists note that the massive patches
of ice near the North and South Pole reflect sunlight back into space, helping
regulate the temperature of the Earth.

Correspondent David George contributed to this report.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scientists Say North Pole’s Icecap Is Melting

A mile-long stretch of water on the North Pole was recently discovered
by a group of scientists and tourists.

By Dan Harris

N E W Y O R K, Aug. 20, 2000  On a recent expedition from Norway
to the North Pole, Paleontologist Malcolm McKenna, along with a group of
scientists and tourists, found about a mile of open water right on the
earth’s crown.

New evidence for global warming.

McKenna, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History who
has studied global warming, immediately started taking pictures to record
what he says should be a serious wake-up call.

“I think that those who think that global warming is not occurring should
pay at least a little closer attention to this single occurrence,” he
cautions.

Was It the Wind?

What McKenna and the others saw, however, may have been just an aberration.
Doug Martinson, oceanography professor at the Lamont-Doherty Observatory
of Columbia University, thinks that the wind most likely broke the ice
apart.

But Martinson says that regardless of the cause, the bigger issue is
that the ice there is 40 percent thinner than it was in the 1950s. He believes
that that the North Pole has been warming up at an alarming rate, which could
have serious environmental ramifications.

“The ice really is thinning dramatically,” he says. “It’s probably prudent
of us to start to pay attention and just really realize that we’re altering
the entire global climate, and it could have all sorts of implications to
our daily lives and activities that we haven’t anticipated yet.”

Martinson asserts that global warming could change our weather patterns,
affecting agriculture, water management, and energy management. Indeed, the
Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree in the past
100 years, and the rate has increased in the last quarter century. By comparison,
the world is only 5 to 9 degrees warmer than it was in the last Ice Age,
18,000 to 20,000 years ago.

Water Shouldn’t Cause Concern

Skeptics of global warming say the climate on the North Pole is always
fluctuating, and that open water should not be a cause for concern.

“It’s fashionable these days to blame everything on global warming,
especially man-made global warming,” says Fred Singer, professor emeritus
at the University of Virginia and founder of the Science & Environmental
Policy Project. “But I’m afraid the evidence doesn’t point in that
direction.”

Malcolm McKenna, however, remains shocked by what he saw. He warns we
should not ignore the fact that, as he wryly puts it, “Santa’s Workshop is
now underwater.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NORTH POLE IS MELTING -- WELL, IT'S MORE COMPLICATED

by Doug O'harra

Daily News Reporter

(Published September 4, 2000)

"The North Pole is melting" declared the lead story in The New York Times
two weeks ago.

In a story that surprised readers across the nation, the Times reported
that "an ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very
top of the world, something that has presumably never before been seen by
humans. . . .

"The last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in water
was more than 50 million years ago."

The paper characterized the observation, made by scientists and tourists
on a July trip to the Pole aboard a Russian icebreaker, as evidence of global
warming's relentless acceleration in the Arctic.

Not exactly, the paper admitted a week later.

Open water at the North Pole isn't that unusual. And the condition of
the Arctic Ocean's ice cap and its relationship to global climate change
are more complex than the Times first reported. A later story, published
on Aug. 29 in the Times Science section, admitted as much and went into extensive
details with satellite photos. The follow-up report prompted ridicule last
week from CBS talk show host David Letterman, who mocked the Times for raising
the alarm and then saying never mind.

The original Times story was based on interviews with internationally
respected scientists who saw the open water but who do not study the Arctic
Ocean full time. That caveat frustrated some Alaska and Washington researchers,
who say the journalist and the scientists, while well-meaning, overreacted.

"This is a good case study of how important science is not treated well
by the media," Alaska Sea Grant College Program information officer Doug
Schneider wrote in an e-mail after the original story appeared on the front
page of the Daily News.

It also shows "how people with heavyweight science credentials but little
actual experience get media coverage and overshadow those who've spent years
studying the issue."

Not only has open water been observed at or near the North Pole many
times, Schneider said, but the prevalence of open leads in the polar ice
cap has far more to do with ocean currents and wind patterns than global
warming.

But people who don't specialize in Arctic oceanography may not realize
that.

"The average person has never thought about what it's like in the polar
regions, so if you go there once or twice, you're going to be surprised by
everything you see," University of Washington ice expert Drew Rothrock told
Schneider, according to a transcript of a radio show.

Still, it's true that the ice cap thinned as much as 40 percent between
the 1960s and the 1990s, according to researchers at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks and the University of Washington. In addition, average temperatures
have risen in the Arctic over the past decades. But local scientists say
it's not clear whether these changes are natural cycles or a consequence
of global warming.

The whole issue began with the Aug. 19 story by noted science journalist
John Noble Wilford. His story was based on accounts by several scientists
who had just returned from the North Pole. They included oceanographer James
McCarthy, director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University
and a leader of a United Nation's panel on climate change.

McCarthy and other scientists didn't see thick ice on their route north,
which surprised them.

"We never encountered the ice that one would expect for that area," McCarthy
said on a "Talk of the Nation" program broadcast Aug. 25 on National Public
Radio. "It was thin; it was intermittent."

Among those amazed at the thinness of the ice was the captain of the
icebreaker, who was making his 11th visit to the region.

When the group found the lead of open water over the Pole, they were
stunned.

"I don't know if anybody in history ever got to 90 degrees north to be
greeted by water," Malcolm McKenna, a paleontologist at New York's American
Museum of Natural History, told the Times.

McKenna's photograph of the slate-gray lead, rimmed by thin pale ice,
graced the cover of the Times. The story went on to link the open water to
global warming.

But Alaska scientists and others quickly called the interpretations
premature, if not wrong.

Arctic Ocean ice thickness appears to be governed by a 60- to 70-year
cycle that may be triggered by a complex process in the North Atlantic Ocean,
according to Igor Polyakov, a physical oceanographer at the International
Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks.

"If you consider ice thickness, we'd have one period of very thick ice
and one period of very thin ice, which are separated by approximately 30
years," Polyakov told Schneider, according to the transcript.

"I would be careful with forecasts," he added. "But available data suggests
that we are very close to the situation where everything will go to the cold
climate regime, with thicker ice, colder air temperature, higher atmospheric
pressures in the ocean."

So what about the report of open water?

That's not so odd either.

On any summer day, as much as 15 percent of the Arctic Ocean remains
ice-free, according to UAF physical oceanographer Mark Johnson. Johnson told
Schneider that the 6-mile-long lead reported by the polar excursion was normal
for midsummer.

"It's a big ocean up there at the North Pole," Rothrock added. "Sea ice
is pretty mobile stuff. It moves around. It cracks. It piles up. It's always
on the go."

Reporter Doug O'Harra can be reached at do'harra@adn.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking, scientists say

Friday, February 2, 2001

By PAUL RECER

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Scientists have worried for decades that the Antarctic
ice sheet was shrinking, threatening a global rise in sea level. Now, satellite
studies show that about 7.5 cubic miles of ice have eroded from a key area
in just eight years.

Melting of that much ice doesn't mean that it is time to get into boats,
said one researcher, but the finding may be a "yellow warning flag" that
confirms long-term changes are under way in the ice fields covering the South
Polar region.

The study, which appears today in the journal Science, involved altitude
measurements of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, the smaller of two major ice
sheets. It covers 740,000 square miles of the frozen continent.

Based on satellite measurements, said Andrew Shepherd, a University College
London geologist and first author of the study, it appears that since 1992
the ice sheet has lost ice principally through the speeded-up movement of
the Pine Island Glacier, an ice stream that drains about a third of the ice
sheet.

"The Pine Island Glacier is key," Shepherd said. "It is totally exposed
to the sea, and people have identified it as the weak underbelly of the West
Antarctica Ice Sheet."

Melting of the entire sheet theoretically could cause a global sea level
rise of 25 to 45 feet, but Shepherd said that at the present rate of change
it would take centuries for the Pine Island Glacier, which is only about
10 percent of the ice sheet, to affect sea level seriously.

Jane Ferrigno, a U.S. Geologic Survey geologist and polar ice expert,
said a speedup of the Pine Island Glacier, as reported by Shepherd and his
co-authors, could foreshadow continuing changes of the West Antarctica Ice
Sheet's ice levels.

The glacier "is moving faster than we thought," Ferrigno said. "This
doesn't mean it could have an effect on coastal areas around the world within
the next few decades, but this is a yellow warning flag. This is an area
that should be watched carefully."

An average of 36 to 38 make the trip daily, even though it takes eight
to 10 hours to make it through. Ships are raised 85 feet above sea level
as they cross the canal, and it takes about 52 million gallons of fresh water
to get each ship through its crossing. People man the Panama Canal 
some 9,500 work there.

The opening of the waterway to world commerce on August 15, 1914, represented
the realization of a heroic dream of over 400 years.The 50 miles across the
isthmus were among the hardest ever won by human ingenuity. Some interesting
facts: A ship traveling from New York to San Francisco can save 7872 miles
using the Panama Canal instead of going around South America. In the fiscal
year 1994 there where 14,029 transits, which carried 170.8 million long tons
of cargo and paid US $ 419.2 million in tolls. The highest Canal toll was
US $ 141,344.91 paid by the Crown Princess and the lowest toll ever paid
was 36 cents by Richard Halliburton for swimming the Canal in 1928.

In 1534, Charles I of Spain ordered the first survey of a proposed canal
route through the Isthmus of Panama. More than three centuries passed before
the first construction was started. The French labored 20 years, beginning
in 1880, but disease and financial problems defeated them.

During 1882 the excavation of the Culebra Cut was started, but due to
the lack of organization there were no tracks available to remove the spoil
that the excavators were producing. After the problems had been overcome,
the highest peaks of the cut were attacked. As work proceeded, the worry
of landslides and what slope should be adopted to avoid them became a major
concern.

In 1883 it was realised there was a tidal range of 20 feet at the Pacific,
whereas, the Atlantic range was only about 1 foot. It was concluded that
this difference in levels would be a danger to navigation. It was proposed
that a tidal lock should be constructed at Panama to preserve the level from
there to Colon. This plan would save about 10 million cubic metres of
excavation.

Disease, in the forms of yellow fever and malaria, put much of the work
force in the hospitals or six feet underground. The most deadly of the problems
on the isthmus had to be overcome - disease. Mortality rates during the French
reign - somewhere between ten and twenty thousand were estimated to have
died at the canal zone between 1882 and 1888.

The rocky ground of the formerly volcanic area proved to be too much
for the French steam shovels and dredges, and headway was made only when
a plan for dynamiting the rocks underwater and dredging up the pieces was
put forth by Philippe Bunau-Varilla (who was later to become one of the most
influential individuals in the United States' interest in the canal). Of
no help was Lesseps' insistence on a sea-level canal, like he had done at
Suez, as opposed to a lock canal, while the latter proved to be cheaper and
more feasible even by reports of the time.

In 1903, Panama and the United States signed a treaty by which the United
States undertook to construct an interoceanic ship canal across the Isthmus
of Panama. The following year, the United States purchased from the French
Canal Company its rights and properties for $40 million and began construction.
The monumental project was completed in ten years at a cost of about $387
million. Since 1903 the United States has invested about $3 billion in the
Canal enterprise, approximately two-thirds of which has been recovered.

The first American steam shovel started work on the Culebra cut on 11th
November 1904. By December 1905 there were 2,600 men at work in the Culebra
cut.

More than 4,000 wagons were used for the removal of the excavated material.
Each wagon was capable of carrying 15 cubic metres of material. These wagons
were hauled by 160 locomotives and unloaded by 30 Lidgerwood unloaders.

American doctor William Gorgas was called to examine the area. The most
troublesome diseases were the mosquito-carried malaria and yellow fever -
the same diseases that had kept Napoleon Bonaparte from putting down the
uprising in Hati in 1801 - but almost all diseases known to man were endemic.
Tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, bubonic plague - all were cases
on file at Panama hospitals in 1904.

Gorgas, while not the discoverer of the ability of mosquitos to transmit
certain diseases, that credit is reserved to Dr. Ronald Reed, he brought
what he had learned at Havanna to Panama. The theory and proven fact was
that malaria and yellow fever were transmitted from infected to healthy
individual by female mosquitos of the Anapheles and Stegomyia breeds, breeds
only common along the equator. Gorgas' goal now was to eliminate the mosquito
population from the canal zone. This was not easy as the French had built
a veritable mosquito hotel along the canal site - sewage drains and bowls
of water used to protect people and objects from the vicious umbrella ants
were first-rate mosquito incubators. Gorgas' troops busied themselves with
covering all standing or slow-moving bodies of water with a combination oil
and insecticide, and isolating infected persons in wire-screen tents. It
took the personal recommendation of John Stevens, then head engineer of the
canal, to President Roosevelt for Gorgas to get the equipment and medicine
he needed to accomplish what he started, but at last the whole of the Canal
zone became the pest-free resort area that it remains today, and medical
teams and hospitals could pay more attention to other diseases - bubonic
plague, tuberculosis - that affected the workers (to a much lesser extent
than malaria and yellow fever had).

Eric Von Daniken claims to give sufficient proof that life exists on
other planets. He explains the evidence left from their visit to earth. For
example, in the early 19th century, ancient maps were found showing the
Mediterranean and the area around the Dead Sea. After many prominent
cartographers reviewed the maps, each individually, confirmed the remarkable
fact that all the geographical data was present but not drawn in the right
places.So others cartographiers were asked to transfer these ancient maps
on a grid and then to a modern globe, only to find that these maps were perfectly
accurate (even giving the topography of the interiors and many mountain ranges
in the Antarctic that were not even discovered till the 20th century). It
was concluded that these maps must have been taken from an aerial view from
an extreme height, but how in ancient times? Von Daniken believes the maps
can only be a result of alien technology.

Another piece of evidence Von Daniken gives to show that extraterrestrials
did in fact visit earth, is found in the ancient city of Nazca. There, in
a plain of 37 miles long and 1 mile wide are pieces of stone (comparable
to rusty iron) lying all over. However, if one takes an aerial view gigantic
lines lied out in geometric shapes can be seen. Many of these lines are parallel
to each other or intersecting each other, while other lines are connected
in a trapezoid shape. Archaeologists classify these lines as Inca roads,
but Von Daniken argues that they serve no function for the Inca's simple
civilization. He goes on to say that these specific lines have been measured
and show to be in exact accordance to astronomical plans. Von Daniken claims
these lines served as a landing strip for alien spacecrafts.

Von Daniken continues to support his belief of alien visits by discussing
cave drawings with forms drawn that resemble today's modern ideal of aliens.
Also, examined is the Surmerian's highly developed astronomy, in which he
claims that could only be credited to aliens. More evidence is examined in
Sacsahuaman in the form of monolithic rocks weighting 100 tons which has
been shaped into a design. In Egypt and Iraq, ancient cut crystals lenses
have been compared to ones of today. It was found that today's cut crystal
lenses must be oxide by an electrochemical process in order to receive the
same end product of these discovered in Egypt and Iraq. Von Daniken believes
this could only be the work of extraterrestrial life. Probably one of the
most interesting evidence Von Daniken gives is that of an ancient electric
dry battery, which is based on the galvanic principle.

There would be nothing remarkable in Derbyshire producing a Hill Walker
of the Year or even a Potholer of the Year. But for this landlocked county
to produce Yachtsman of the Year, and for that award to go to a 22-year-old,
slip of a girl from Whatstandwell, is nothing short of miraculous.

Ellen MacArthur will spend 100 days alone at sea in the Vendée
Globe yacht race which starts at 13:01 on 5 November, 2000. Kingfisher, the
leading European retailer, has enough faith in her to have sponsored her
to the tune of £2,000,000 for the design and build of the 60 foot boat
that will take her single-handed, non-stop around the world.

She does not come from any yachting club, 'Howard's Way' culture and
has not risen through the ranks of the sailing elite. As she cheerfully puts
it: "I'm not a cool racing person with the right designer gear." For Cowes
and Hamble, substitute Flash Dam and Ogston Reservoir. Her great-grandparents
came from Skye and were boating people and a great-uncle ran away to sea
when young, but any real connection with the sea is tenuous. When Ellen was
eight, an aunt took her sailing on the east coast, after which she was
hooked.

At school, she saved up all her dinner money for three years to buy her
first boat, an eight-foot dinghy. She was a "geek", she says candidly, spending
all her spare time reading sailing books in the library and soaking up
information like a sponge. She was going to be a vet but a bout of glandular
fever while she was in the Sixth Form set her back. Instead, she resolved
to become a professional sailor.

So at 18, she sailed single-handed round Britain and won the Young Sailor
of the Year award for being the youngest person to pass the Yachtmaster Offshore
Qualification, with the highest possible marks in theory and practical
examinations. The nautical establishment looked on benignly at "Little Ellen"
from Derbyshire, just 5' 3" tall, and metaphorically patted her on the head.
She wrote 2,500 letters to potential sponsors - and received just two
replies.

They stopped patting her on the head and looked at her in a new light
when she undertook the Mini-Transat solo race from Brest in France to Martinique
in the French Caribbean in 1997. With little money, no major sponsorship
and not even a return ticket, she took the ferry to France, bought Le Poisson,
a 21ft yacht, and refitted it on site. She learned French in order to deal
with French shipwrights and camped next to Le Poisson while she worked on
the mast and hull.

Then she sailed 2,700 miles across the Atlantic; a race which she completed
in 33 days. This achievement brought her first major sponsorship from Kingfisher,
who believe in backing young people with an ambition to succeed. In a new
boat, the 50 ft Kingfisher, she undertook the Route du Rhum transatlantic
race in November of last year, winning her class and finishing fifth overall
in the monohulls.

She is a heroine in France, where she has been named 'La Jeune Espoire
de la Voile' (Sailing's Young Hope). More people flock down to the quayside
to see her off on a race than fill Wembley Stadium for a Cup Final. They
shout her favourite phrase, "Ellen, à donf" which means "Full on!
Go for it". Sailing in France is what the marine industry hopes will arrive
in Britain, where water sports appeal to a wider audience, especially young
people.

Thousands follow Ellen's race progress on the Internet. Messages and
digital pictures from a boat in the middle of the Atlantic can be instantly
relayed around the world from the on-board computer and updated every hour.
Satellite phones mean contact on shore for weather routing and emergencies.
Ellen's uncle, Dr Glyn MacArthur, a GP in Crich, was woken during one night
to hear Ellen's voice asking his advice on a head injury she'd sustained
during a severe gale on the Route du Rhum.

Exhausting racing conditions mean sleeping in ten-minute snatches, a survival
suit that doesn't come off for a week at a time and hands and wrists covered
in salt sores and cuts. Dehydrated food comes in packets: if they get wet,
the labels peel off and she doesn't know if she'll be eating curry or pudding
until she opens one. Sails, weighing twice as much as she does, may need
changing a dozen times a day.

There are moments of pure elation - sunrises and seascapes that take
the breath away. But there are nightmare times when lone sailors must become
engineers.

She describes a night and day that ran together, when 15 litres of fluid
(resembling cooking oil) burst from the rams controlling the keel, the big
steel fin that goes down through the boat. In heavy seas, slipping and sliding
round the deck and with the keel unstabilised, she had to drip feed oil back
in to the reservoir through a tiny funnel.

Before she'd fixed the keel, a piece on one of the sails ripped, which
meant taking down the sail and sewing for five hours through the night. Water
came through the hatch and was swilling round the boat. And then later, when
she'd dried all the compartments, a mighty bang threw the boat on to its
side and all the electricity that powered the satcom communication system
went off.

What keeps her going is sheer determination not to be beaten: "When it's
a race, you just can't stop. Five times a day, you get the position of all
the other boats in the race and work out whether you've gained or lost time,"
she says. "It would be easy to say, 'chill out', when you're tired but you
never have to lose the goal of the finish line. That's what you set out to
do and that's what you stick to."

She's spurred on too by the messages she receives on her email. "We're
proud of you. We're guilty that we haven't put half the effort into our lives
that you put into everything you do," one said. Her response is: "When you're
out there in the freezing cold and you're being tossed around and you don't
seem to be achieving what you want to achieve, a message like that comes
through and just takes you away from it. How could you possibly give up?"

Kingfisher's 115,000 staff world wide will be following her progress in
the Vendée Globe as if she were one of the family.

There isn't an ounce of vanity in her and she's a tireless ambassador
for the sport. "Anyone could do it", she says, and means it. "You only need
a few hundred pounds and you've got to start somewhere." Getting this far
has pushed her harder than she'd ever have imagined but she insists: "If
there's one thing I've learned in this past year, it's that deep down in
your heart, if you have a dream, then you can and must make it happen."

She's based now at Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, where she and fellow
yachtsman Mark Turner run their own company, Offshore Challenges. Trips home
are infrequent but she'll grab any opportunity of a visit, letting herself
and her dog, Mac, into the caravan in her parents' garden. Ken and Avril
MacArthur know she's home when they see the laptop computer and the mobile
phone.

We're due to take pictures and I ask on the telephone, "How do I get to
your Gran's house?" There's a pause while she thinks. And then: "I'll put
my Mum on!" says the girl from Derbyshire who will navigate herself around
the world.

PARIS (AP) - With the finish a day away, Michel Desjoyeaux of France
was in position Friday to win the Vendee Globe solo round-the-world yacht
race.

Britain's Ellen MacArthur, at 24 the youngest skipper in the race, was
in second place, organizers said.

Desjoyeaux looked as if he would be the first to reach the finish line
at the French port of Les Sables d'Olonne on Saturday.

Of the 24 skippers who left Les Sables d'Olonne three months ago, 16
are still in the race that takes the 50- to 60-foot boats across three
oceans.

After sailing nearly 24,000 miles nonstop, Desjoyeaux was almost 500
miles from Les Sables d'Olonne, from where the race started Nov. 9. MacArthur
trailed by nearly 800 miles.

``I think Michel won this race pretty early on,'' Dominique Wavre, who
is in fifth place, was quoted as saying on Vendee Globe's Web site Friday.
``He's had all the right cards to win this race over and above his
talent.''

Last week, MacArthur briefly seized the lead, capping an extraordinary
three weeks in which she wiped out Desjoyeaux's 750-mile advantage as the
pair raced up the Atlantic.

But MacArthur slipped back into second place after only a day in front.
She also had a serious setback when her yacht hit an object and was damaged,
although she has since repaired the boat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday January 21, 2001

Briton Gaining in Round-The-World Sea Race

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Ellen MacArthur has slashed the lead of
Frenchman Michel Desjoyeaux in the Vendee Globe non-stop, singlehanded
round-the-world race, officials said on Sunday.

A week ago when MacArthur, the youngest competitor in the race at 23,
rounded Cape Horn, she was some 623 nautical miles behind leader
Desjoyeaux.

By Sunday, she had cut that lead to just 225 miles and was still gaining
on the Frenchman, who had fallen victim to light winds.

The leading boats in the race were on the home stretch, sailing up the
Atlantic Ocean toward the finish in Les Sable d'Olonne, France, where 24
boats started the race on November 9.

Desjoyeaux, who is trapped in what is known as the St. Helena high pressure
system, said: ``There is nothing I can do. Saint Helena is annoying me.

``I am waiting for the system to change but when I look at my weather
files it doesn't get better for me. I am preparing to see the others in a
few days.''

In the past 24 hours MacArthur has averaged more than 14 knots, while
Desjoyeaux has made a comparatively slow nine knots.